The story of Monty and Rose started on the western side of Michigan in 2017. Monty was hatched high on a dune at Silver Lake State Park, and Rose was hatched from a nest at Muskegon State Park. The birds met in Waukegan, Ill., and attempted to nest there in 2018 in a parking lot (see photo of Rose above, courtesy of Emma England). The following year, they reunited at Montrose Beach in Chicago and attempted to become the first nesting Piping Plover pair in the city since 1948.

About filmmaker Bob Dolgan

Bob started the "Monty and Rose" project as a volunteer monitor in Chicago in 2019. Despite having little experience in filmmaking, he launched a Kickstarter to get a film made about the birds. Bob manages Turnstone Strategies, a marketing/communications business with a specialty in nonprofit organizations, and is a past Board Member of Chicago Ornithological Society. He writes the This Week in Birding newsletter, which is published twice each week. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Chicago Reader, Chicago Wilderness, Richmond Times-Dispatch and on the City Creatures blog. Bob earned his BA from Kenyon College and his MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Rose at Waukegan Beach in 2018, photo by Emma England
​Bob Dolgan at Montrose Point in 2019, by Kristin Sanders